


What We Will Hear

by OriginalWeird



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: A lot of these characters aren't gonna be there straight up but we'll get there, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Constant Interludes, F/M, Fake Dating, How Do I Tag, Okay That'll Do, Running Away, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-10-29 12:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalWeird/pseuds/OriginalWeird
Summary: Honestly, a lot of the ideas Artemis Crock has had recently have been terrible: infiltrating a top-secret gang while seeking revenge, getting caught out by said gang, and trying to fishtail-braid her hair. However, this is probably the worst idea she's ever had. Well, it's too late for doubt now, she's speeding down highways on the back of a motorcycle that belongs to a complete stranger.She's pretty sure this is going to get both of them killed.





	1. SomeBODY Once Told Me The World Was Gonna Kill Me

"DRIVE!"

It was late. Near three am. He was barely visible, hovering on the edge of the streetlight's glow. He was a shadow. His bike was brightly coloured, but everything bled into the background of graffiti. It was all a beautiful Gotham City mural. He looked like he fit right in.

Then again, so did she. 

Her nose and knees and elbows were bleeding. Both her eyes were black. Her hair had been tugged out of its ponytail roughly, and stood up in a mad-looking cloud of blonde. She was so pale she was almost luminescent beneath that shining streetlight. She looked tired. She looked hungry. She looked desperate.

She was running. 

They were chasing her.

Maybe she'd left them behind, maybe they were right on her heels. Looking over her shoulder would waste a precious second. She was out of seconds. She caught a glimpse of him, a split second of shadow that wasn't an enemy. She caught a glimpse of hope.

She took the last choice she had left.

She threw her life into his hands and threw herself onto the back of his motorbike.

Her word rang out through the night. It was so loud that, four floors above them, a little girl named Keira-Jane would wake up to it and toddle, doll in one hand, to her parent's bedroom and wake up them both. They would not be able to get her back to sleep until the sun climbed into the smoke-filled sky. 

We will hear no more about Keira-Jane.

On the street, a teenage boy who had been staring vacantly into the distance jolted forward. Later, he would be unable to describe the feeling that came over him, the spirit that possessed him, the madness that consumed him and made him slam the gas so that the two strangers squealed out of that street. In that moment, it was all he felt. He just went, so confused all rational thought stopped. The pair were gone before her pursuers could reach them. She was safe.

He'd saved her life. 

And then it was over. 

They were racing down an empty highway, so fast she'd wrapped her arms around his waist. They couldn't see each other, they hadn't seen each other. But here they were. This struck him more abruptly then a punch to the face had when he was thirteen.  
It had been administered by Kevin Jones. Kevin had a horrible home life-his mum had walked out, his dad had a gambling problem-so he took his problems out on those around him. In this instance, the boy who would one day buy the fastest bike on the market had been walking past Kevin, trying to whistle a tune but pretty much just blowing a raspberry. Kevin's brain had been stuck on the comments his dad had made that morning, largely about how useless Kevin was, and was struck by fury. He had stuck out his fist and punched the passer-by with no warning. Years later, years even from this current moment, Kevin would channel his maddening fury and frustration into art. He would sell hundreds of paintings, and would then-eventually-go into politics.

We will hear no more about Kevin Jones.

The boy, now with a million second thoughts in his head, pulled over without warning on the side of the streetlight-less road. The girl, her own second thoughts all but melted away, was pretty shocked. For a few seconds that stretched on longer then dentist's-waiting-room-minutes, there was the sort of silence you can only have at night, the silence that is not empty but instead loaded with doubt, fear, and anticipation. Then his words cut through it, sharp and loaded with wary half-poison.

"What's going on?"

He'd saved her life. She most likely owed him an explanation. She took a deep breath and wiped some of the blood on her lips onto the back of her hand.

"I'm on the run."

There was a pause. It was a loaded gun sitting in the middle of a knife-fight, unclaimed, but lying in wait. He grabbed the loaded gun.

"What the hell do you mean, you're on the-"

While speaking, he had swung his bike around so it faced her, standing there, still bleeding and bruised, and she lit up in the glow of the headlights. She looked like she'd lived through a nightmare-hell, through several nightmares-yet, despite it all, she still seemed like she had the power to get up, get through one more nightmare, fight off whatever was coming.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She was still. He was frozen. In the distance, a creature scampered through the bushes, skittering and slightly unnerving them both.

The creature was, in fact, a common housecat. She was named Tigger, a title bestowed upon her by the people she owned. She assumed it meant god, or perhaps supreme leader. There were four of them, her people. They all worshipped her. They carried her places, gave her food, cleaned up her poop… The point was gotten. Tigger was amazing. Her people all liked it when she STAY INSIDE GET BACK HERE TIGGER-ed but occasionally she figured she had to pay them back. Right now, she was hunting a mouse she had found. It would be the perfect gift for her people. They would know she loved them too. 

We will hear no more about Tigger.

The two slightly unnerved people standing on the side of the road both began to talk at the same time, the tension so thick you could have given two dozen cakes a very generous coat and still had more than enough to lick off spoons and scoop out of bowls.

"So where do we go from-"

"Do you want to maybe-"

They stopped and laughed awkwardly. This was not going well. The girl was beginning to wonder if she should have just kept running and then died. She made herself stop thinking that particular thought and started talking again.

"I'll assume you want an explanation and just give you one. Don't nod, your headlights make it impossible for me to see you. I don't want to see you until I've finished telling you this stuff. I haven't told this story before. Give me a minute, please. Maybe two. If you don't like it, feel free to just drive away. That's fine.

Um, it all began when this…gang leader guy…really screwed up my family. So I had no more dad. And no more sister. No, he didn't…kill them. But he might as well have. And then he got my mum hurt. Really badly. She can't walk anymore. She uses a wheelchair.

So, uh, I… I made a plan. I made a really long-term, complex plan. It…was going to be difficult. I started the earliest stages last year. I talked to the leader guy…said I liked his work and stuff. Said I'd like to be in his gang. He told me he'd give me a mission. Prove my loyalty. Then I'd be in. 

The mission was basically to get this one guy… he owed the leader money, I had to get him to trust me, then bring him to this place… this place where there'd be some thugs waiting, so he could be interrogated. He said that's all you gotta do. Then they told me where I could find the guy. 

He had a signature coffee shop, this guy, a home base. He went there every Monday and every Wednesday. The next Wednesday, I waited in a booth with a cup of tea until he showed up. I waited a couple of minutes. I went over. I told him he looked so unbelievably handsome, I just had to talk to him, did he want to go with a restaurant with me Friday?"

She paused, stared at the ground. Scuffed the toe of her combat boot in the gravel. 

"Yeah. He did."

She then spoke with a little more urgency, gaining determined momentum with every spat-out word.

"He met me, in a pretty dress gang money had paid for, at this nice restaurant, wearing a goddamn suit like it was a whole darn thing, told me to get anything I wanted, he was paying, pulled out a seat for me. All the stops. All the goddamn stops. He wasn't great-looking, he wasn't even that nice-he was rude to the waiter and to the hostess, but not to me. For me, it was madam, and my lady, and mademoiselle. Wasn't I just so radiant that night. Wasn't I just so gorgeous. Wasn't I just so wonderful. He told the waiter to eff off, but I was so fantastic. 

I ordered some fancy salad. He was delighted. He ordered a steak. I flirted my stupid heart out around mouthfuls of rabbit food. He took it all and threw it back. Wasn't I just so charming. He insisted we get dessert. Share a dessert. So we did. 

He paid for all of it. He wasn't lying. It was pretty expensive. I suggested he drive me home. He jumped at the chance.

I… I directed him to that warehouse. He asked me what was going on. I told him not to be worried, it was all fine. Henchmen surrounded his car. They lifted him out. He screamed. They took him into that building.

There was a gunshot."

Her words had been shouted.

Her last sentence was a whisper.

The words still hurt. She'd been the last person to talk to him. She'd led him to death. She would never stop hating that.

"I was in the gang. I infiltrated. I learned everything. I knew all. Someone found out about my plan. They told me drop it. Or I'd be dead too. They'd kill me. I told them to take their best shot."

She gestured to herself.

"They did. 

I ran. I ran so much. I didn't stop running. People were on my heels, they yelled, they were right there and they wouldn't stop coming.

They threatened. 

Don't ask anyone for help.

We'll kill them too.

But I asked you for help.

And we're not dead.

Not yet."

Her last words were heavier even then the ones she'd whispered. She felt doomed in that moment, like she was all out of chances. He would speed away into the night. She'd keep running. It wouldn't be enough.

She steeled herself for the death she knew was coming.

Then he spoke.

"Which way are we heading, then?"

She started upward. What?

"What?"

"Which-Way-Are-We-Heading-Then?"

She had to be dreaming. But he stretched his hand out. She took it. She was pulled onto the back of the bike and slid her arms around his waist in a daze.

"Well?"

It didn't matter. Not really. So she pointed forward, the way they'd been heading.

She pointed forward.

Off they went.


	2. The Waking Nightmare Is Also A Road Trip

It seemed surreal. They were the only ones on the road, neither of them saying a word. They still didn't even know each other's names. He knew more about her then she'd ever told anyone else before. She knew he'd agreed to help her.

For now, it was enough.

Their silence seemed almost comfortable now, neither of them knowing what to say, neither of them knowing what to do, but almost relishing in it. It was strange. There was no denying it. It was like waking up from a strange dream wrapped in a warm blanket, something someone else had tucked around your shoulders, something you could shrug off if you wanted to pull yourself from the couch cushions and go find out when you had fallen asleep, but all the same, there was no rush, no real reason, just warmth and now.

It was surreal.

She didn't talk to a lot of people. She didn't get out much at all. He had a group of friends that hadn't changed in years, utterly tight-knit. He knew everything about them, they knew everything about him. He didn't need anyone else.

Yet here they were.

The wind was cold, biting at faces and hands. She wasn't dressed for this. His helmet and his spare helmet still sat in storage underneath them. He was a little warmer, wearing a better jacket and a pair of gloves, but he wanted the dumb old-timey pilot goggles his best friend had gotten him as a gag gift. They sat with his helmet. They kept the wind out of his eyes.

She wanted a cup of coffee.

It was still dark, but the occasional neon sign flashed by, and she caught glimpses of his face. She wanted to see his face. Why wouldn't the sun come up already so she could see his face? They passed a single house, a house far away from everything, and startled an old man sitting on his porch listening to the world wake up around him.

That man was Old Mister Smith, and he'd taught in boarding schools for most of his life. He'd been a maths teacher, and the woman he'd met on the job and then married had taught history. They'd had three beautiful kids. When his wife had gotten sick, after those three kids had grown up, he had retired with her, and he and their children had made sure she was happy right up until the day the sickness had gotten too bad to treat any longer, and everything around him had stopped. He'd moved to a town where nobody knew him, where nobody would be sympathetic to his plight. He didn't need any sympathy. He'd earned a reputation as a grump. He'd moved again. Now he lived far from everything. It didn't matter how far he went, his family still saw him. His eldest came down with wife and the twins every second Tuesday, his middle child called every Friday and visited on the second Monday of every month, and his youngest, baby in tow, was there whenever they felt like it, which was often. He liked being alone too, and he liked watching cars go past. He kept a log. He would note that motorbike down as 'Good model. Strange people. Going somewhere.'

We will hear no more about Mister Smith.

The pair on said bike were indeed going somewhere. They didn't know where yet. They would probably know it when they saw it, they figured. They had to. That was how this worked.

They rode into the sunrise. It wasn't all that bright, coated with clouds, but it was there, and the colour scheme of the world changed-slowly, softly-from black into grey. The colour was leeched out of things, but not as violently. It was the sort of scene that you'd expect to mark beginnings, but seeing as they had already begun, it seemed a little odd. They continued going forward, into the beginning the sky had chosen, until they reached a truck-stop side-of-the-road town. It was small. Almost insignificant, a blip on a road-trip radar. But it was there they stopped, outside the town's one café. 

Sweet Thing had been created ten years ago next month by a woman named Gertrude. She always had a pencil stuck through her bun, and she called everyone sugar. She made terrible apple pie, but her coffee was amazing. She had no staff, and a good deal of her customers were disappointed, having been holding out for a McDonalds, but there was only the petrol station and Sweet Thing, so people got what they got. Gertrude was in love with the man who ran the petrol station, and he with her. It was going to take them another year on top of the six already built up for them to admit this to each other, but when they at last did, they would have a perfect happily-ever-after life together.

We will hear no more about Gertrude. 

The boy and the girl sat across from each other. They were in a booth so small their knees kept bumping together, and they were sizing each other up over their coffee mugs.

She wasn't bleeding any longer, but she was still a little bloody. She was still bruised, still beaten, still disastrous. She'd attempted to flatten the locks that ran rampant around her head, but she'd had little success. He took all this in with next to no thought about any of it. Then he looked harder.

Her eyes were grey.

Not blue-grey, not particularly shining or sparkling, not particularly open. Like locked safes, her emotions behind them. They were just grey. But that, for some odd reason, struck him as the most extraordinary thing he'd seen recently. And so, it was this he pondered over as he sipped from the mug he'd poured half the sugar packets sitting on their table into.

She looked at him.

He looked strong. Sort of…runner's build. She would be able to take him down in a fight, though. He looked…something like innocent. The reality hadn't set in yet, she realised. For him, it wasn't yet a life and death situation he'd gotten himself into. It was a strange one, of course, but he wasn't dead or dying or about to be either. So, he wasn't focusing on where they were going next. Just were they were now. Maybe he thought this was a game. He looked like the joking type. His default expression seemed to be a smile. His eyes-green-had crinkles around them, constant reminders of joy written into his face. He was pale, but freckly, and tall, but not extremely so. His hair was red, and he kept running his hand through it so it stuck up a little. She wondered how odd they looked right now.

She wondered what he was called.

He'd paid for the coffee. She didn't have so much as a single coin in her possession. They'd only spoken when ordering. Not to each other. They finished at almost the same time and left their mugs on the table. They filled up the bike and walked into the petrol station across the street. He went straight for the register. She grabbed the back of the jacket he was wearing and steered him towards the food.

"We'll need it."

He nodded in conformation and they both started taking food from the waist-height shelves. When they were both finished, they headed for the register together, arms full.

She had muesli bars, bottled water, trail mix, and a singular decently-sized bar of dark chocolate. He had energy drinks, three different kinds of gummy candy, two different extremely large bars of chocolate, a family-sized bag of chips, and a small bag of peppermints. She said nothing about any of it, but she was sorely tempted. He was paying.

The man at the register only smiled, and they were gone fast. Their food was put into the compartment under the seat, after he brought the helmets out of it. His was yellow, and paired with the old-timey goggles, looked downright gaudy. The spare one was green and ever-so-slightly too small for her, squeezing her head in on itself. She almost started a conversation with him before they set off, but she decided against it. If he wanted to talk to her, he would have done so earlier. 

Maybe this wasn't a game to him, she thought to herself as they flew down the highway, passing the occasional car now and again. Maybe it was strictly business. Maybe he took crazy girls across the country on his motorbike all the time. 

A woman in one of the passing cars fought an overwhelming and unexplainable urge to scoff.

This woman was Faith Delaney, and she had incredible instincts. She had predicted a great deal of things in her time, the most recent being that her sister was going to marry the man who kept being brought up in conversation between the two. Her sister would, and Faith would get two nieces out of it, but she hadn't predicted that yet. She would. But not yet.

We will hear no more about Faith Delaney.

The boy was stuck, not for the first time, with realisation. He didn't know her name. They needed to talk. Properly. They continued for another fifteen minutes or so before he saw a turnoff for what would turn out to be a town that prided itself on one thing; their park. He took the turnoff. 

They went into the heavily advertised park at three to ten. It was big, and it was really quite pretty. It wasn't extraordinary. It might not even really reach special. It was, however, a good place for the talk they needed to have. He parked his bike on the edge of it. She was jolted out of her thoughts. This was an odd stop. Why…what? Her mind slowly caught up with her surroundings and she scrambled a little to follow him, to put her helmet down, to catch up to his long striding stances. She might have done some form of undignified half-jog in order to do so. She wouldn't be telling.

He stopped walking by a wooden bench that was overshadowed by a tree, so classically pretty, a spot straight out of a painting by an Old Master. He sat down there, and she hovered nearby, unsure about all of this. He offered a smile and his hand gestured to the spot next to him. She sat down as if the bench was going to burn her alive, to drag her into the fiery pits of hell. It was weird, she decided. It felt like a spot you'd sit at if you were…on a date.

Was this a date?

It could be.


	3. Spluttering Is Not A Good Look For You

He spoke first.

"What…what can I call you?"

She stared at him. She'd been expecting questions, but she'd prepared answers for things like where can I leave you, will these people find me if I go home, excreta, excreta. She hadn't been expecting that. Before she could so much as open her mouth, he jumped in. 

"You don't have to tell me your full name, or your real name even, just a name I can refer to you by, and maybe a fake one as well as your real one in case we get asked for our names somewhere, if you tell me you real one that is, which you don't have to do-!"

"Artemis."

It was only one word to counteract all he had sent her way so far, but it did the trick. Even so, she piled a few more on top of it.

"That's real. By the way. But if anyone asks, I'm Ingrid Jayden."

He hadn't been expecting that. What had he been expecting? …Nothing, maybe? Her to storm out, storm off, maybe take his bike with her, maybe yell at him for ruining the mystery surrounding everything. Who knows?

"What's yours?"

"Wally. Wally West. I don't have a prepared fake name. Do I need one?"

She shook her head. 

"They don't know who you are."

Oh. Yeah. He didn't really know who they were either, matter of fact. The world seemed to have morphed into a spy movie while he wasn't looking at it, some ethereal being stealing the remote and flipping a switch so the channel changed on his life. Spy movies! Speaking of…

"Do we need a cover story?"

She nodded. His brain whirred into the realm of possibilities, most of them on the side of slightly preposterous. She spoke again, before he could, but she was only thinking out loud.

"What reason would teenagers have for running away on a motorbike?"

A thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. It was a split second of stupid clarity, and he saw the answer to the question, something he wouldn't have considered saying out loud if there was anybody to hear but her, Artemis, this girl who had put all her trust into him for some reason known only to fate.

"Love."

Love is a strange word to say without context. It is the kind of word that makes you jump back into conversation, the kind of word you can say almost without thinking to your family, but one that can hold you back for a long time when talking to certain people. It can make people turn to look at you in shock, it can make people sad, happy, or confused. It's a big word. Short, but big.

It made Artemis choke a little as she turned to stare at Wally in bewildered disbelief. What was he talking about? He realised what it sounded like and fumbled with syllables.

"Because-it's a re-reason people run away! Like, their parent disapprove or something!"

Artemis nodded at him.

"Okay."

Wally made a noise he had only made once before in his life, the time when he first met a girl with soft eyes who made great cookies. Immediately following the noise, he'd put on a masked façade of coolness he only possessed occasionally and flirted with her in a manner he was certain, at least in the moment, was incredibly smooth. Now, he didn't have the mask to fall back on. It was a weird noise, somewhere between a cough and a snort, and he was pretty sure humans didn't do that very often. Artemis didn't react to it. She was reaching the end of her showing-respect-because-you-saved-my-life tether, though. Wally spluttered for a minute or so, trying to regain his composure, before blurting out his next statement.

"Wait-is that our cover story?"

Artemis shrugged, projecting perfect calm and keeping her internal conflict bottled up.

"It's a possibility, I guess. Remember the name, we'll be fine."

Inside Artemis's logic-based brain, a war broke out. On one hand, yes, it was a believable concept for a cover story, and it wouldn't really mean anything. On the other, the last guy she had acted romantically with had died. Literally died, as a direct consequence of her actions. Logic was boring, and superstition reigned supreme. No more fake romance!

"I'm not, ah, asking you out, or anything."

Wally's face had painted itself a rather fetching shade of vermillion.

"I-I've got a girl back home, anyway."

Of course he did. Artemis nodded at him in a half-mocking acknowledgement, batting her eyelashes in a neat caricature of sweetness.

"Yeah, and I've got such a special guy-we made eye contact twice!-we're basically married, right?"

"Shut up! That's not what I meant! She's…she's really special."

Artemis mentally smacked herself. Why was she exaggerating this so much? Wally was a…decent-looking guy. He had a girlfriend. So what? 

"Yeah? Is her name Candy?"

She could feel her IQ dropping-plummeting-and she couldn't have despised her own dumb way of doing things any more than she already did.

"No!"

He looked so affronted. Wow, Artemis, this is how you treat guys who save your life and are literally paying for all your food. Wow.

"Her… Her name is Megan, if you must know. And she's beautiful. And sweet, and nice, and she cooks really, really well. And-"

"Your girlfriend sounds great, Wally. I get the point."

"Uh…she's not my girlfriend. Not yet. I was gonna ask her soon, though. When we all went to the beach together. That was supposed to be toDAY, I'M MISSING THE BEACH-"

Wally stood up, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. Artemis pulled him back down.

"Calm down, Baywatch. Uh…tell me who 'we' is, okay?"

Wally grinned, his eyes taking on the reflection of a million memories. 

"My friends! They're the best. I already told you about Megan, and then there's Kal, and Conner, and Dick, and Roy, sometimes, and there's Zatanna."

"Sounds great."

Wally's head nodded. His brain stayed firmly affixed upon his memories of the very excellent beach, only a few minutes from Megan and Conner's respective houses, and just waiting for him to burst onto it-

"Baywatch, we gotta move."

"What? Why?"  
Artemis didn't respond. She grabbed his arm and ran. He felt like a cheap Barbie belonging to a four-year-old girl; his arms were being yanked off. He staggered behind her. He was a track star, he could run, but this wasn't something he'd been prepared for. 

He hadn't been prepared for anything that was currently happening.

It was happening anyway, because the universe didn't care what Wally thought.

The teenagers didn't talk again while they climbed onto the bike and sped off, same direction they'd been heading since last night, just forward. Wally had, for the most part at least, given up on asking questions. For right now, that was. There were too many unanswered ones. He couldn't just leave that alone forever. But he could ignore them for a few minutes. 

Instead of focusing on all the questions he'd like to ask Artemis-hey, he should probably get into the habit of calling her Ingrid, huh?-he focused on the weird situation he'd found himself in. It wasn't the first time he'd been randomly told to drive, surprisingly, but the first instance-and every following instance, right up until this one-had come from Dick Grayson, not some random girl running away from a gang. Speaking of Artemis-Ingrid!-she still had blood and stuff on her. How hurt was she? Should he find a hospital? Um…maybe not a hospital. A first aid kit or something, then. And maybe a hairbrush. A toothbrush! They literally had nothing! How long was all of this going to last anyway? He was going to need to sleep soon, urgghh…AH!

Wally swerved. The truck he had been heading right for honked furiously.

The man behind the truck's wheel scratched his left eyebrow and muttered something under his breath about crazy kids. This man went simply by Joe. Joe had never pictured himself as a trucker, but everyone else he'd ever met certainly had. He seemed to be born for such a profession. When he'd dropped out of high school, he'd been thinking about starting his own business and had turned to trucking for start-up money. Twelve years later, leaving his truck wasn't an option. He was married, with a son who also seemed to be destined for the job, and would actually be the head of a long line of truckers.

We will hear no more about Joe.

Wally avoided hitting anything as he turned around. Artemis hit him to make up for it.

"YOU MORON!"

At this point, Wally hit the tether's end. How could you forgive carelessness like that? Artemis's quota was filled, and even though she was pretty sure she'd seen an agent in that park, it seemed like she was going to die whether he kept helping her or not. She was tired, she was angry, she was…

No.

Artemis didn't get scared.

Wally, however, was now feeling slightly scared of Artemis. They continued on, Artemis whispering a string of quiet insults that trailed behind them like a piece of thread. The day continued too. Artemis ran out of words. Her grip on Wally, which had grown so tight he'd started losing air, slacked. She slumped forward.

When had she last slept?

She couldn't remember. 

She closed her eyes. Didn't matter. She was sufficiently caffeinated. She would live. 

She fell asleep within ten minutes. She almost fell of the back of the bike. Wally yelled this time, leaning back and almost sending them crashing into the highway divider. He caught her. He then pulled over, and told her to keep her eye out for a cheap-looking motel. He was running low on money, but they needed to sleep, so despite Ar-Ingrid's! sleepy half-protests, that was what they were looking for.

Once there, they could figure out a plan. 

They were going to need one.


End file.
